Durgapur, Aug. 21: Shamed by three instances of ragging within a year, the National Institute of Technology here has decided to hold counselling sessions for senior students.

A meeting chaired by Partha Pratim Sengupta, the dean of the institute’s administration, decided last night that the heads of all departments and the anti-ragging committee, comprising senior faculty members and other deans, will take special classes to counsel students every week.

“Besides holding classes to make them aware of the consequences of their behaviour, we have decided to expel students accused of ragging henceforth,” Sengupta said.

Over the past year, senior students of the institute have been accused of making juniors wash urine from hostel floors, clean up toilets and suffer cigarette burns.

Swapnil Sharma, a first-year civil engineering student, was beaten up and forced to kneel down for over two hours by two seniors of the electronics engineering department on Friday evening.

Diwik Tiwari of the second year and Jitendra Sharma, a final-year student, were sus- pended on Saturday after Swapnil’s father took up the matter with the human resource development ministry in Delhi.

The authorities have also decided to deploy private security guards round the clock at the first-year students’ hostels. “No senior student will be allowed to enter a junior’s hostel without written permission from the warden or the superintendent. Juniors have also been asked not to visit their seniors. Not even to chat. If senior students are found in the juniors’ hostel or vice-versa, they would be punished,” Sengupta said.

The students have been asked not to step outside their hostels after 7.30 pm.

To leave the campus, students will have to obtain a written permission from the hostel superintendent.

“Students will not be allowed to leave their hostel or the campus in large groups. The wardens and senior faculty members will pay surprise visits to the hostels frequently,” Sengupta added.

Swapnil, from Gwalior, did not attend classes today. Doctors at the institute’s health centre, where he was treated after the seniors’ torture left him bruised and traumatised, advised him bed rest. Injury marks are still visible above his left eyebrow and left cheek.

“My father was supposed to arrive last night, but he could not. I am still scared of the seniors,” he said.